


each step that needs to be taken

by enharmony



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Brother/Brother Incest, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Incest, Jealousy, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Sibling Incest, Twincest, i'll tag every variation of these until the day i die so nobody can say i didn't warn them, kind of???, monologuing ... so much monologuing, unfortunate chocolate cornets, very vaguely implied/referenced sexual content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 03:26:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15621513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enharmony/pseuds/enharmony
Summary: Hiyori, the manager of the volleyball club is talking to his brother, giggling and blushing, and Osamu keeps wondering why it makes him feel likethis.prequel towhat should be vs. what has to be





	each step that needs to be taken

**Author's Note:**

> it really doesn't matter in which order you read these two, though.
> 
> I will once more shout "THIS IS ALL ABOUT INCEST" until you're all sick of it and also beyond that. please, if you by some accident ended up in this tag and aren't comfortable with incest please for the love of god do yourself a favour and leave. again, I'm not really sure why you're here then, but I'm not taking any chances.
> 
> it's kinda unfortunate how short this turned out but I hope you like it anyway ... it's the Osamu side (or as I like to call it, "side:O") to my first Atsuosa fic but like I said, you can read this first if you wanna, it really doesn't make much of a difference. if you crave an actual conclusion, though, know that there is one!
> 
> writing Osamu is more comfortable than writing Atsumu, I think. maybe I just do better with the "very done" characters. I still appreciate their relationship a lot ... it's pretty straightforward in canon which may be exactly why it's so fun twisting it and turning it more complicated. they have this weird sense of trust that isn't really trust ... someday I'll go more into that, too. maybe.
> 
> the OCs are only there to be drama fodder I'm sorry neither of them have done anything wrong they were just at the wrong place at the wrong time ... also, it's kinda funny, I started writing this a while ago and now Free! S3 is airing and Hiyori is a super interesting character to me (and currently my second favourite after Makoto), so having named Manager Girl that by pure coincidence makes me laugh a bit, pff. now I can't stop imagining her as him. the thought of Hiyori crushing on Atsumu is a pretty damn comedic one
> 
> anyway, I'll say it again no matter if you're tired of it, LEAVE IF YOU'RE NOT COMFORTABLE WITH INCEST, and with that, enjoy! ~ that's a request, not an order. I can't force you to enjoy it. but I'd be happy if you did

Hiyori, the manager of the volleyball club is talking to his brother, giggling and blushing, and Osamu keeps wondering why it makes him feel like _this_.

It’s like something’s twisting inside of his heart, urging him on to just shove her out of the way and drag him home so she won’t be able to talk to him any more than she has to. She’s not a bad person by any means, especially not compared to Atsumu, and yet – and yet.

_Go away._

She can’t have him. His twin getting in a relationship would mean there’d be one more person in the equation of Atsumu plus Osamu, and no matter how much of an annoying piece of garbage he is, he’s still _his_ annoying piece of garbage. They’ve always been together, just the two of them. That can’t suddenly change.

One of the second years taps his shoulder but he can’t tear his gaze away from the pair on the other side of the gym. Interrupting their conversation would be rude. It’s not usually what he’d do.

_Go away._

There’s not many things that have gone wrong in Osamu’s life.

Honestly, up to this point, he can’t think of anything he truly regrets. Maybe he could have studied more for some tests but it all worked out fine in the end, so he’s not going to pity himself over that now. Right now, just as his first year of junior high is about to end, he thinks he’s doing pretty well for himself. He’s even grown taller than Atsumu, so he finally has something to brag about whenever his twin brings up their seven minute age difference again.

Yes, so far he’s not had anything to complain about.

So why?

_Go away._

She’s cute, he supposes. He hasn’t ever had a crush on a girl, but if he had, it’d probably have been her. A second year in the same class as Alan. She knows a lot about volleyball and always cheers them on. Usually he’d consider her a close acquaintance, if not a friend.

Right now, though, he hates her.

_Go away._

Atsumu’s probably not interested, judging by the look on his face. Whether he is or isn’t doesn’t matter though. All that matters is that she’s trying to take what’s rightfully Osamu’s.

Homework – laundry – grocery shopping – any excuse to drag his brother home will do.

“Oi, ‘Tsumu,” he starts, frantically searching for something as he heads toward them, each step feeling like he’s walking straight into a minefield. “Didn’t mom say she needed our help in the kitchen today? Practice is over, let’s go home already.”

“Really?” Hiyori says, clearly disappointed that they couldn’t go on. _Good._ “Well then … I guess you should go, Atsumu-kun.”

“So I’m allowed in the kitchen again?” Atsumu asks.

Damn it. Right. They did say – not too long ago, after his brother almost set the kitchen on fire with hot chocolate of all things – that he wasn’t allowed to help until he learned how to do it properly. He should have thought about that.

“She needs my help,” he corrects himself. Surely he can make this work. “But there’s no need for you to stay back. Who knows what you’re gonna do when you’re alone.”

“He’s not alone.” Hiyori almost looks smug and it makes it very hard to consider her a good person still.

_Go away._

He chooses to ignore her because he doesn’t know what might come out of his mouth if he retorted something now. “Let’s go, ‘Tsumu.”

“What’s with you today?”

Even though he protests, his brother follows him to the club room without even saying goodbye to Hiyori. He’s clearly not winning any decency award either.

What does she want from Atsumu anyway? She’s friendly enough to have someone nicer. Besides, why would she be going for a first year? He knows they two of them have been kind of popular lately – for unknown reasons in his brother’s case, he’d have assumed he’d scare them all away.

Osamu wishes he had.

By the time they’re in the club room, the conversation is over and they fall into one about what kind of food they’re getting today and if they can buy ice cream on the way home. It’s a relief that his twin isn’t bothered by Osamu dragging him away, or maybe he’s just acting like this to use it against him later.

Hiyori is still their manager though and her advances are going to be a pain in the butt. How he’s going to deal with that he doesn’t know quite yet, but he knows he has to do something.

He won’t let anyone get between them.

 

* * *

 

It’s at the start of the next school year, right on the first day, when he realises something is very wrong.

They got chocolate cornets on their way home and the way Atsumu is eating his is just asking for disaster. He’s inwardly counting the seconds until all the chocolate explodes on his face, hand already clasped around the phone in his pocket to not miss the chance to take a photo.

“What’re ya staring at me for?” he asks with a full mouth and a glare that tells him he could count down the seconds when his gaze falls to the cornet in his hand – three, two, one …

“Sploosh,” he mutters right when Atsumu’s hands constricts around the cornet just a little too much and all its inside come splashing on his face.

“What the— Shit!” Yup, he saw that one coming. His brother clearly didn’t though, he’s cursing and wiping the chocolate from his face with the sleeves of his blazer, but he’s not paying any attention to the cornet still in his hand and it just keeps dripping. And dripping. And dripping.

Osamu’s phone is out, of course.

“Hah. Idiot.” He chuckles to himself when Atsumu sends him a death glare.

“Shut the fuck up and get me a towel or something! Seriously, how much chocolate is _in_ these things?”

“Not enough. It’d have been better if it’d gotten in your hair too.” Nevertheless he reaches into his bag to whip out the handkerchief their mother gave him earlier today. Sometimes it feels like she has a sixth sense for things like these happening. Osamu steps forward to raise the piece of fabric to his brother’s face – honestly, it might make it even worse, they need water or something like that … And it’s making recording pretty impossible, his camera is facing the ground now. With a heavy heart he turns it off. “Stay still.”

“I can do that myself! Just give me the thing.”

“So you’ll embarrass yourself even more? Let me do it.” Maybe he can write something on his face with chocolate this way. How about ‘useless idiot’? Maybe ‘waste of space’. Those are long phrases though.

Atsumu, apparently realising that Osamu is the one in control here, actually does stop moving around aimlessly, though not without muttering curses under his breath as his brother tries to clean the chocolate from his face. This is its own unique kind of funny, like he’s the mature one … Actually, scratch that, he _is_ the mature one. It’s just that he doesn’t often get a chance to shove that fact in Atsumu’s face.

They’re just kind of standing around on the pavement now, surrounded by nothing but the trees of the nearby forest and a few houses, and thankfully there’s nobody around to make this more awkward than it already is. For Atsumu, that is. Osamu is having a pretty good time.

“Has nobody ever taught you how to eat?” he asks with a smug grin. “Here I thought we had the same parents when I turned out just fine, clearly one of us is hiding something.”

“Fuck you,” Atsumu hisses and then Osamu is pretty much done.

The handkerchief is ruined now – goodbye, pretty flower embroidery – but the chocolate is surprisingly almost gone for good. What a waste of a perfectly good cornet, though.

“See, now the little baby is all clean again—”

“Buy me a new one.”

He blinks. “What?”

“I said,” Atsumu growls, clearly trying and failing to sound intimidating, “buy me a new one.”

“Why would I do that? It’s not my fault you can’t eat.”

“Because I saw you record that! And that’s not fair, so make up for it and buy me a new one!”

“I’m free to record my idiot brother being an idiot whenever I please.” And he’s going to show that to Alan, definitely. Or perhaps to Hiyori … Would she still like Atsumu if she saw him like this? Probably not. Two birds with one stone – he’d have a chance to embarrass Atsumu and get Hiyori out of his way.

“You look like you’re hatching a plan and I don’t like it.” Atsumu pouts and crosses his arms, the chocolate-less cornet still in one of his hands. Is he planning on eating that? “You better not show that to anyone!”

“You know, I was thinking,” he starts, slowly, “that I wanted to show it to Hiyori-san. Y’know, because she’s into you for some weird reason and that should probably be cured somehow.”

Atsumu makes a strange expression that looks half like a grin and half like someone just punched him in the stomach. “Yeah, so? Of course she likes me. What do you have against it?”

“She doesn’t strike me as someone with judgement this poor, usually. I’m just trying to protect her.”

“As if,” he almost spits out, and suddenly the intensity in his eyes is frightening and his forced-looking smirk seems more like a weapon about to hit him over the head. “You’re always bothering me when I’m talking to her. It’s like you’re jealous or something.”

_Jealous._

He’s not. He’s not jealous of Atsumu and he’s certainly not jealous of Hiyori. It’s true, he doesn’t like seeing them together, because she’s wasting Atsumu’s time, because they’re not a good match, because his brother being in a relationship would mean that nothing could be like it used to be and there’d always be another person there and that’s not how it is, that’s not how they are, that’s not how they’re supposed to be but that doesn’t mean he’s jealous.

_Go away._

“Quit saying weird shit and get moving already. We could already be home if you hadn’t exploded your own damn cornet in your face.”

He’s not jealous.

He’s not.

Being jealous would be weird. You’re not _jealous_ because someone flirts with your twin brother. Maybe he just doesn’t like change. But that’s not the same as being jealous. Being jealous means he doesn’t want someone to take Atsumu away from him. And that’s not it. Atsumu doesn’t belong to him anyway. Just because they’re twins doesn’t mean they own each other.

So he’s not jealous.

Atsumu finally looks at the remains of the cornets in his hand and frowns at it before tossing it into the nearest trashcan with commendable accuracy.

“You could have still eaten that.”

“Nah, that cornet has betrayed me. I won’t trust it anymore.”

It seems that conversation is over. If it ever was a conversation. That just means it’s not important anyway, so whether Atsumu thinks he’s jealous or not has no consequences.

Not that it matters anyway, because he’s not jealous.

_Go away._

See, it’s just fine … If it’s someone who’s not Hiyori, maybe someone as terrible as Atsumu, who he imagines by his side, and if that person left them alone most of the time, if nothing were to change but the way his brother refers to someone else, then—

Osamu is trailing a bit behind Atsumu. He doesn’t usually do that – he’s careful not to walk in front of him unless they’re racing, because you never know what kind of bullshit he will pull on you if you turn your back to him, but he doesn’t like looking at his back, it just makes him feel like he’s losing.

Right now, though, he can’t be walking right next to him.

Right now he’s deep in thought trying to make sense of the knives he feels twisting into his heart when he thinks of Atsumu speaking of his _boyfriend_ or _girlfriend_.

_Go away._

It’s not that. He’s not jealous. There has to be some other explanation for it. Maybe he just subconsciously thinks that Atsumu being together with anyone would have a harmful effect on society. Yes, that must be it.

Anything else would just be ridiculous. Being jealous would mean he wants to claim him in some way. Yeah, he’s still _his_ piece of garbage, but all he means by that is that he was born to be his brother so he’d better make the most of it if possible. But jealousy – jealousy is different.

People aren’t jealous of the person that shows romantic interest in their sibling. That’s not how that works. If they were, that’d mean they, too, have that sort of interest. And that’s not – that’s just not feasible. Osamu has never thought of him that way. He never _should_ think of him that way. It’s wrong. He doesn’t really know why, but he knows that it is.

Osamu is a good person. He wouldn’t have such disgusting thoughts.

_Go away._

 

* * *

 

The bathroom has become a scary place. Even when he’s in there, he avoids looking in the mirror unless he absolutely has to.

That’s the case today as well. It’s all just fair, really, because today he has company over and no need to stay in the bathroom for long anyway.

It’s a boy from his class called Yuzuru he’s been getting along with recently, and he supposes this counts as their ‘first date’. He’s not really all that interested but no bad things can come from trying; Hiyori has left Atsumu alone ever since he showed her the chocolate incident four months ago, which means it’s now his turn to try his luck with love. Or something like that.

The thought of having a boyfriend is kind of nice. Now that he’s starting to realise he definitely doesn’t want a girlfriend, it seems like the logical conclusion. If he were to pick a certain type of guy, he’d like someone he can just be casual with. A nice person. Maybe someone who’s a good cook. Yuzuru fulfils all of those criteria, his family even owns a restaurant. This should be perfect.

He’s in the kitchen making tea and minding his own business when Atsumu comes in to shove him to the side. “Get away, I’m hungry.”

“I was here first,” Osamu protests and shoves back. “Just wait until the water is done boiling.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright, go make tea for your _date_.” The way he says the word kind of makes him want to punch him. Not because it’s a mocking tone like someone would use to make fun of you childishly – there’s genuine resentment in his voice and Osamu hates it.

He hates it because it sounds so much like what he felt when he saw Atsumu with Hiyori.

“Go away.”

“You’re stuck with me.” He is. They’re thirteen. No moving out until way in the future.

He’d like to move out, though. Move far away from Atsumu and whatever the fuck it is he feels. He can’t put into words what _exactly_ it is, but he knows it’s nothing good, so he needs to get some distance in. Which is difficult when his brother is standing way too close for comfort, still not moving an inch.

If nothing else, these sorts of feelings don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. They’re going through puberty, all sorts of weird stuff happens to you in puberty, right? Having the occasional confusing feelings for your twin brother just sounds like a rite of passage.

Maybe everyone goes through this.

Maybe Osamu’s not the weird one.

Maybe it’s just a little bit less disgusting.

Maybe …

The kettle whistles and saves him from thinking about this any harder.

He disappears to his room as soon as he’s got two cups of tea ready, has a somewhat pleasant day with Yuzuru that ends in a half-hearted agreement to start officially going out, and avoids the bathroom until he gets ready for bed later that night.

 

* * *

 

Yuzuru’s a nice guy.

Not bad-looking, either. Their relationship lasts a surprising amount of time.

Maybe it’s a bit early to start experimenting with the more intimate side of things in your third year of junior high but honestly, at this point he just wants someone else to think about that’s not Atsumu.

Because it’s Atsumu. It’s always Atsumu. It shouldn’t be. He doesn’t even know why it’s Atsumu, he doesn’t fit the type of guy he’d ever want to date, he’s annoying, he knows all his worst sides by heart, if he wasn’t his twin brother he’d probably stay the fuck away from him, but _it’s always Atsumu_.

It’s Atsumu when his classmate asks him about what he would imagine his wedding to be like. It’s Atsumu when he starts trying to figure out what things his body reacts to. It’s Atsumu when he’s feeling anxious about something and closes his eyes and tries to think of something soothing. It’s Atsumu in his dreams, nearly every goddamn night.

_Go away._

When he looks at him, he can’t see him as someone he’d actually _date_. He doesn’t want to be in a _relationship_ with him. He just doesn’t want to be _without_ him, not ever, not like this.

Yuzuru notices, of course. Maybe he’s always noticed. He looks sad when he breaks up with Osamu, but they remain some sort of friends.

“Your heart is clearly not in it,” he says that day, in the hallway of their school, and glances at Atsumu coming out of his classroom.

Of course his heart wasn’t in it.

He wonders if he made Atsumu jealous, though.

Then again, he knows the answer. He hates knowing it, but he knows it.

He wishes it was _no_.

 

* * *

 

The most stressful periods are when their parents aren’t home for a day or more.

Both because it’s incredibly annoying to always clean up after his brother’s mess and because at least seeing his parents reminds him that they are, in fact, brothers, and he should not want him like he wants him.

_Go away._

They won’t go away. As much as he’d love for them to, these feelings won’t go away.

He’s decided on making the soup Atsumu likes no matter how much he tries to tell him otherwise, the one with the big chunks of meat and carrots, and even though he still doesn’t like it, he has his back turned to him now, with his brother waiting for him to get done, tapping his fingers on the kitchen table. It’s annoying as all hell and he’d really appreciate if he’d stop.

He’d really appreciate for all of this to stop.

The taps get louder, more obnoxious, harder to ignore. He twitches and the spoon hits the metal pot.

They still don’t stop.

“‘Tsumu, I swear to _god_ —”

Silence.

**Author's Note:**

> I had another ending line but it seemed so on-the-nose so let me just end this by saying that the last paragraph, aside from being a lead-in to the sequel, may hold a bit of a double meaning. that is all
> 
> yell at and/or with me on [Tumblr](https://en-harmonia.tumblr.com/) if you wanna! o/


End file.
